A fresh theoretical and empirical look at elites and political leadership

This section is sponsored by the ECPR Standing Group on Elites and Political Leadership. The panels bring together contemporary debates, traditions and trajectories that researchers who study political and social elites and leadership share. These range from those that focus on theory and method to single and large-n case studies. The scope is far-reaching and considers developed and developing worlds as well as the gamut of individual actors in their capacities as elites and leaders. Drawing on the repeated success of the Standing Group on Elites and Political Leadership’s sections (an average of eight panels since 2015), we are proposing to host eight exciting panels, some of which are co-sponsored by other ECPR Standing Groups or Research Networks. First, we continue to recognize the interdisciplinary foundations that make up the study of leaders and elites with an emphasis on theoretical and empirical advances in the respective fields. These allow in particular to account for both persistent challenges regarding the selection, career and action of political elites and contemporary phenomena arising in new and often unpredictable electoral and governance environments that affect their work and their role. Taking stock of cutting-edge elites and leadership research, we want to analyse adaptations and possible transformations of political elites’ professions, how they connect to citizens, and suggest ways forward for theoretical and empirical studies in those fields. This aim is reflected in the organisation of panels on the selection, role and impact of several types of elites (party leaders, vice presidents and deputy PMs, ministers, MPs) in increasingly polarised, personalised electoral environments (leading to the rise of charismatic leadership and deviations from purely party-based competition) and complex governance contexts. Second, in order to keep abreast of the ongoing developments in the methods applied to, and data collection that allow for the study of elites and political leaders’ career choices and behaviour. We team up and co-sponsor several panels with the ECPR Standing Group on Parliaments and the ECPR Research Network on Voting Advice Applications especially for those aspects, tracking new developments in data collection and the emergence of novel online data sources on different types of political elites around the world such as for instance candidate-based voting advice applications.